Whistle-blower's Welcome For Stanford Doctor

A Veteran Neurosurgeon Who Almost Quit Because Of Sex Discrimination Says Colleagues Treat Her With Disdain.

September 29, 1991|By Knight-Ridder Newspapers

PALO ALTO, CALIF. — Dr. Frances Conley has not had an easy re-entry to Stanford University Medical School since she stunned her colleagues last month by her 11th-hour decision not to resign from the neurosurgery department.

Conley attracted national attention in June when she announced she would quit after 25 years, citing years of sexist treatment by some male doctors.

Conley said that many faculty members have treated her with disdain since her return. But she said that students, who returned last week to begin fall classes, have been very supportive, just as they were when she announced her resignation.

''There is tremendous resentment toward me on the part of the neurological staff,'' Conley said during a phone interview Thursday. ''My fellow faculty members are still very distant.

''It's been very hard to be back,'' she said. ''I would love to be away. I would like to get off the emotional roller coaster I've been on.''

Conley announced in late August that after talking with many of her colleagues in the medical profession and at Stanford, she decided she could do more to effect change by working within the system than by leaving it.

''Actually there is a fair amount of support for her on the faculty, but it's not very vocal,'' said Ravi Chandra, head of the Stanford Medical Students Association. ''Certainly students were ecstatic when she decided to come back.''

Conley also returned because she said she was satisfied with progress administrators have made in responding to her concerns about sexist treatment.

She said one of the most important actions taken by administrators was the reopening of the search for a head of Stanford's neurosurgery department. Conley had complained that Dr. Gerald Silverberg, the acting head of the department and a front-runner for the permanent job, had often treated her like ''a handmaiden and an inferior.''

Conley has continued to head the neurosurgery service at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, and she is still teaching at Stanford. But she said she will not return to Stanford's neurosurgery department until she is satisfied that ''the atmosphere in which I worked no longer exists.''